Scientific creativity is now an oxymoron. Wonder is systematically driven from the minds of students in favor of rote memorization and blind adherence to dogma. We, as students of nature, exista in self-imposed Kuhnian deception derived from that which we claim to be the mark of emancipation: education. The modern system of education, in the eyes of Albert Einstein, "strangles the holy curiosity of inquiry." In essence, science has lost its spirit: the spirit of wonder.
Somewhere between choosing letters from "A" to "E," powerpoint-induced indifference and picture book textbooks, the idea that science is a creative enterprise has been lost. Students are no longer active entities in their own learning. Instead, students are pacified by the excesses of nomenclature, deification of achievement and most importantly, methods intended to produce competence at the price of wonder.
It is often stated that the power of science resides in imagination and curiosity. Although this statement is prima facie quite profound, it proves misleading upon closer examination. No individual has ever been motivated by imagination, and curiosity is an inherent property of man; it is wonder, the emotional admiration of nature, that motivates man to fulfill the mandate of curiosity through the means of his imagination.
A barrier to wonder is the language employed to describe scientific terms and concepts. The meaning of scientific thought is obscured by excessive and overly complex acronyms, non-standardized naming conventions that have weak semantic connection with meaning, and language so heavily specialized that individuals within subfields now experience language barriers. To further exacerbate this confusion in language, students are forced to memorize these absurd conventions when these attention resources could be better allocated. Although it is important to be conversant in science, it is imperative that concepts take precedence over linguistic vestige.
Furthermore, in blatant contradiction to its founding, science education deifies individuals and concepts. For example, Charles Darwin in "On the Origin of the Species," made numerous false claims and by some accounts, was struggling more with the lack of rationality in the world than with evolution. Gregor Mendel's pea data demonstrating patterned genetic inheritance by some accounts is too precise to be genuine data.
Evolution itself has been given a special status in biology such that questioning evolution is akin to questioning the entire program of biology. It is this dogmatic approach to education that is counterproductive to the process of science. A process that defines itself by skeptical empiricism cannot possibly be reconciled with assertions made above reproach.
Worst of all, science undergraduate education is focused upon competence, not wonder. It is not the creativity of your thoughts or the soundness of approach, but rather the ability to memorize and repeat that is extolled by the university. Multiple choice questions condition students to place emphasis on only the accepted answer and not the method of derivation. Students lose the inherent desire to evaluate what is stated in a text and instead they blindly accept, only to forget that which is learned after the examination. As a result, these students are woefully unprepared for the actual practice of science after undergraduate education forcing graduate professors to sacrifice important research time to explain basic concepts.
Further, despite the potential of powerpoint as a tool to enhance learning, it is often employed by professors as a substitute for critical lecturing and questioning. Both the teacher and student become passive entities in a relationship predicated on ease, precluding the ability of students to derive concepts for themselves. Pictures in slides and textbooks simply give away content allowing students to gain, not achieve understanding. It is in this phenomenon that wonder has been mostly purged from science education.
One must make students work for knowledge, not through meaningless jargon or the legends of great achievement in science, but rather problem solving in specific cases. Similar to the educational tools of business schools, wonder can be restored to the student future scientist through solving cases relevant to topics. It is through the case-based method, the method that most closely resembles that of the actual practice of science, that students can become active entities in their learning and fulfill the mandate of curiosity.
Michael McDuffie can be reached at michaelmcduffie@cavalierdaily.com.
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